Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and graduations can yield serious sales with the right email marketing strategy. Here’s how you can celebrate moms, dads and grads with smart emails that give your business a boost.

Why email marketing is perfect for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and graduation

Email marketing is a proven way to generate more leads and increase sales. Personalized emails perform best, which is why reaching relevant audiences ahead of Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and graduation is a winning strategy. This trio of events are as personal as it gets and customers are ready to open their wallets for their moms, dads and grads. All three make the National Retail Federation’s list of top ten consumer spending events: the average American spends nearly $180 on Mother’s Day, $133 on Father’s Day and $103 on graduation.

Whether you sell gifts, operate a restaurant or provide party supplies, you don’t need to convince customers to buy for these events — you just need to convince them to buy from you. Email marketing is one of the most effective and affordable ways to do it.

Smart email marketing ideas for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and graduation

A keen understanding of your customers and their motivations is the best way to convince them to buy from you through email marketing. Consider these promotions for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and graduation.

• Promote the perfect gift ideas and link to online gift guides.
• Launch mother/daughter, father/son and graduate photo contests on social media and promote them via email.
• Create a sweepstakes or giveaway email campaign where the prize is relevant to moms, dads and grads.
• Offer an experience: create a special “treat mom/dad/grad” package; for example, a spa day or a round of golf. Or, partner with non-competing businesses to offer a package deal.
• Offer conveniences such as free gift-wrapping and free shipping.
• Email daily deals in the weeks leading up to Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and graduation.
• Email mom, dad and grad spotlight stories to inspire customers to buy for their loved ones.
• Email reminders so they don’t miss important dates; add a time-limited discount or buy-one-get-one code to motivate instant sales.
• Focus on graduate needs: freshman survival kits, graduation gift ideas, dorm room sales and items needed to cover the first year of college expenses (food, entertainment and clothing gift cards, etc.).
• Target shoppers and who they’re buying for. For example, on Mother’s Day people don’t just buy for their moms. They also buy for their grandparents, wives, mothers-in-law, aunts and sisters.
• Host special restaurant events such as discounts for dads, craft beer and wine tastings, art and wine events, ladies’ nights for mothers and daughters, trivia nights, guest servers for charity, father/son or mother/daughter bar Olympics and more.

Craft smart email subject lines to motivate opens

Of course, your audience needs to open your emails to take advantage of your offers. Here are some compelling email subject line ideas you can emulate.

• Show Mom/Dad/grad some love
• Celebrate Mom/Dad/grad
• Did you forget Father’s Day?
• The best gifts for mom/dad/grad
• Last-minute graduation gift ideas
• Gifts your dad will love
• Free shipping on Father’s Day
• Free gift-wrapping for Mother’s Day
• Treat Mom (and yourself)
• What dad really wants
• Celebrate dad and save 25%
• Save $15 on the perfect graduation gift
• Time is running out! Last-minute gift ideas
• Last day for guaranteed Mother’s Day delivery
• 10% off site-wide for Father’s Day
• Give thanks to your mom with the perfect gift
• 1-day Mother’s Day sale
• Graduation gift inspiration
• The ultimate Father’s Day gift guide
• Gifts for stay-at-home dads
• Gifts for techie moms
• Gifts for every type of mom
• Father’s Day gifts for every budget: $10, $25, $50
• Win a mother/daughter spa experience
• Hand-picked graduation gift ideas
• You owe it to mom
• Top 10 gifts for dad
• College dorm gift guide
• College freshman survival kit
• Graduation? The best styles for students
• Grown-up gifts for new grads
• Mother’s Day deals you don’t want to miss
• Snap a photo with dad and win
• Share your best mom photo and win
• Father’s Day is June 16
• Take your dad golfing and save
• Here’s what your mom really wants
• Make dad king for a day
• Be the good child/son/daughter this year

Increase your reach with social media (and make it easy with email automation)

Increase your reach by promoting your Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and graduation offers and events on social media. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest can boost exposure exponentially and put your business in front of new people who aren’t on your email marketing lists.

Of course, you probably have a lot of great ideas for celebrating moms, dads and grads; but every small business owner struggles to find the time to execute every idea. That’s where email automation comes in. It makes it easy to:

• Create all your mom, dad and grad emails at once, then send at scheduled intervals
• Develop drip campaigns that automatically send ultra-targeted emails based on user activity (for example, if they open email A, they get email B; if they click link C, they get email D)
• Analyze results so you can optimize future campaigns for success

You can also take advantage of social post scheduling to plan your social media campaigns and publish posts at optimal times — simply set it and forget it, so you can focus on other business growth activities.

Use social and email automation tools to make marketing a breeze and follow the tips in this article to craft smart emails that increase sales on Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and graduation.

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© 2019, Brian Morris. All rights reserved.